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Screensize: 640 x 480 800 x 600 1024 x 768 1280 x 1024 UserName: Password: Format Mode: Basic  Help  Prompt  Format: Videos: Font Andale Mono Arial Arial Black Book Antiqua Century Gothic Comic Sans MS Courier New Georgia Impact Lucida Console Script MT Bold Stencil Tahoma Times New Roman Trebuchet MS Verdana   Size 1 2 3 4 5 6   Color Black Red Yellow Pink Green Orange Purple Blue Beige Brown Teal Navy Maroon LimeGreen Message: * HTML is OFF * Forum Code is ON Smilies [quote][i]Originally posted by Momodou[/i] [br][b][size=4]Boycott the 'Major' Press Conference! [/size=4] By Madi Jobarteh[/b] If the President of the Republic is not attending this so-called press conference to take responsibility of decisions and actions of himself and his Government then no journalist should attend. Citizens have heard multiple stories of all sounds and colours from ministers and top officials yet the truth is still nowhere to be seen. Citizens don't need to hear anymore fabrications, excuses, rationalisations, false equivalences, condescension and rantings by these same officials. As journalists you have interviewed these same officials multiple times and they gave the same colourful and meaningless answers. What more do you need to hear? Our people are dying from preventable diseases while our children, the future are bastardized with poor education services as billions of dalasi are wasted in frivolous and illegal spendings. We need truth and accountability and not another talk show! The Banjul road project is a disgusting scam. None is responsible than the President. Hence no one must answer for it other than himself. As journalists, do not allow public officials to use you as a sanitizer and a cover. The Gambia Constitution has given you a guaranteed duty to hold the State accountable on behalf of the people. Therefore the only person left to ask about this illegal and corrupt project is the chief architect who is none other than President Adama Barrow himself. If you call yourself a journalist who is worthy of this noble trade and ready to uphold the Constitution then do not go to this so-called major press conference so long as the President is not there. Remember what Joseph Pulitzer said, "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations." As a journalist, ask yourself where do you belong - a public-spirited press or demagogic press? The ball is your court. Finally, it is to say that this so-called press conference highlights once more how much the President and the Government undervalue and disrespect Gambians. It is not enough for the President to embark on visiting flooded communities but it is even more pertinent that he submits himself to open inquiry to demonstrate his seriousness in this whole affair. The Banjul road project is a disaster for which he must face the nation to tell us how we got here and what next. Accountability. It is abundantly clear that this project is wrong and illegal on all fronts. Lives and livelihoods have been destroyed. Futures have been severely undermined. All of that is thanks to the decisions and actions of Pres. Barrow took. Therefore shouldn't Pres. Adama Barrow come to the front to tell citizens about his decisions and actions. For The Gambia Our Homeland [/quote]   Check here to include your profile signature.